Formula Drift Seattle

July 23-24, 2015: Enter our second Formula Drift Pro 2 event. Coming off a successful debut in Orlando, Florida the team and myself went into FD Seattle with a ton more confidence and knowing that we belong at this level.

Oddly enough, Thursday practice was spent much like Orlando, trying to free up the car to run aggressive lines yet still maintain a great deal of spend in the chassis come the Top 16 battles, assuming we qualify of course!

With a bunch of changes we got the setup somewhat close for qualifying and were able to go out on our first run and put the car in 3rd place overall after our first lap. Solid, again we were safely in the show on our first lap and I knew we could push on the second lap to try and put it on the top step leading into Friday’s main event.

Knowing exactly what needed to be done I strapped in and got ready at the line to begin our second pass. 1st, 2nd, 3rd and into 4th when suddenly the car spiked into limiter for a quick moment before initiation into the 85mph banked 5/8th’s oval. After a quick pull on the e-brake and another clutch quick to begin the long right hander on a high line the car once again hit limit much to quickly and I shut it down right away.. This wasn’t right and I knew I was getting some clutch slip. I rolled it around and back to the pits unable to complete my second qualifying lap but knowing that we were fortunately already in the show. We ended up qualifying with another 6th place out of another huge field of talented drivers.

William Bowering, Crew Chief and Owner of The Independent Speed Shop shimmed our clutch up and we hoped for the best as we didn’t have a spare in the trailer (yet). Thankfully the twin disc held all day and we were able to run in the Top 16 competition.

Have a watch of the video up top as we go against Jeff Wolfson in our Top 16 Battle and then match up against James Evans in the Top 8 pushing it to a “One More Time” battle. A mistake coming off the bank caused me to spin while leading James and ultimately hand over the win. James would then go on to win the event outright! Again, more progress and some more points pushing us up to 7th overall now in Formula Drift standings out of 40 drivers. Let’s see what we can do in Texas next month!